Playing heal support not enjoyable

Disclaimer- edits are coming when I have time.

I’ve had my fair share of games and classes and roles (tank roles, melee dps roles, ranged dps roles, heal roles, disruption roles, cc roles, non heal buff/support roles, debuff roles and hybrids of these roles), tons of solo and group pve and pvp stuff… over the course of many years. I can honestly say that playing heal support roles in gw2 has been the least enjoyable experience in all my years of mmo gaming. So while gw2 has a leg up with certain things like freedom to move and cast, a good targeting system, a general responsiveness with skills, being able to mix and match different skills… the quality of playable roles outside of being a damage dealer is just not there. Yes of course we have some skills that simulate roles, but those roles are more “esque” in nature.

It’s no secret that professions were designed to be self sufficient, and that the original intent was to have each profession viable for groups. Those are true, but the prevalent role here is damage dealer. There are hybrid damage + bits of “light” roles to play, but those are not really that great to be honest. Having a few skills that do X for 3 seconds on a 60 second cool down is not much of a defining or enjoyable role.

I’m not here to say that we need to turn warriors into tanks, eles into cc mages or druids into mace wielding clerics… I’m saying roles need to be perform better and better defined. There is nothing wrong with giving each class access to every role, but those roles need to be smooth and enjoyable to play. So back on the topic of healing roles…

HoT and Raids brought more heal support to the game with druid, Ventari and a bit more healing to ele with tempest. It was clearly stated that the “zerker” meta was unhealthy for long term gameplay and that changes were being made. Some shifts have occurred for sure, but the healing support tool kits given to professions are meh. The gated heals and reticle aiming heal design of druid is sincerely not good. The clunky Ventari tablet is not good. Ele water/tempest is most tolerable of the other 2, but still not good compared to most every other heal role in any other game. Like I said, gw2 shines with freedom of movement and the stuff I mentioned earlier, but those are core combat system designs and have nothing to do with roles at all…

There are players who want to log in and play a decent heal role, not to be met with frustration. I can’t even tell you how ultra rare it is to see a healer outside of raids, that’s how bad it is. I’ve personally never seen a Ventari Rev in wvw because it’s just not practical or useful compared to blasting the enemy with ranged hammer… I’ve rarely seen quality heal spec Druids in open world pve and www, and they were certainly not using CA 1 and 2. All they, and I, do is random spam a couple skills. Ele is not much better either honestly.There is not any quality and smooth healing in this game. It’s either clunky reticle or move clunky healing object around or “heal spray and pray” mostly… Heal support is only decent when groups and opponents are more stationary or confined to a small area, like in raids.

When I look at the combat system as a whole, the only way we can remedy the heal support issues is to make most heal skills pbaoe (point blank area of effect) and have splash heals on enemy targeted attacks for the most part… Long duration large area healing “patches” as well. So for some simplified examples of this… We take Druid CA and make it a non gated “stance” maintained until downed or manually exited (reenter timer starts upon exit). Make CA skill 1 and 2 single target ranged attacks with large area splash heals. CA 3, 4, 5 and seeds become large radius 5 target pbaoe burst heals that deal dot damage, and Glyphs continue to do what they do. Ventari tablet becomes a “backpack” so Revs can run around beating stuff up and doing their heal “things” tied in with energy mechanics. Ele is most similar to this style I’m recommending, but some improvements could be made.Just to break down the above a bit more there could easily be enough variation for all profession heal roles using the burst, big dot, regen and “patch” styles

Druid- Staff “hippie” with CA “healing mage stance” that does some damage with a focus on heavy burst heals.

Rev- Staff Ventari “backpacker” with energy mechanics.

Ele- Warhorn/water/tempest/shouter/whatever… becomes the “soothing mist-er” style with regen and emergency “burst” dot heals.

Warrior- Staff “monk” with various healing support banners that cover large areas.

Necromancer- Frontline “juicer” hammer healer. Enemy takes damage and their life force “splash” heals allies.

Engineer- The “archer medic” that uses longbow or shortbow to fire offensive arrows fit with various healing canisters that support front liners.

Mesmer- Dual sword “blade dancer” that weaves steel and magic to slice up enemies and dot heal allies. Illusions function the same way. F skills do burst healing or regen or remove conditions or bigger dot heals.

Thief- The “shadow healer” channels the defensive properties of “shadow magic” to heal self and allies with an off hand Focus. This super cool healing “shadow magic” surrounds the thief and nearby allies in a wispy darkness that regenerate health and remove conditions.

Guardian- Revamp shield to constantly surround the guardian with “holy fire” that spreads big dot heals or regens or purges conditions on self and allies over a large area depending on toggle F skill chosen.

I know I’m just throwing out lots of crazy stuff, but the entire premise is to make healing support roles smooth and enjoyable to play in this movement heavy game. There is nothing worse right now during combat than to use all these clunky skills to support our teams. It’s poor design when a healer has to apologize for not having access to heals on Druid and to chase moving players with reticles and tablets hoping it will heal them. There has to be a better balance between incoming damage and conditions and heal and cleansing support. Doing these will also add another dimension to gameplay and provide decent roles to play instead of just dps/ultralight support for a few seconds.

I’ll have some edits like I mentioned, but I wanted to throw it out there because I’ve been frustrated playing my favorite role since hot launched. Maybe I’ll try to flesh out the simplified profession heal role ideas to make them more understandable and sensible.

Keep in mind that unless they've changed the rules, you can't edit your post unless you do it within 15m of posting~

Your post meanders a little around the middle and I would like to see if I understand your concerns; correct me if I'm off target.

You main concern with "playing heal support" in Guild Wars 2 is because of healing in this game isn't "smooth." According to you, a "smooth" healing gameplay doesn't involve extraneous mechanics that require aiming and positioning, two things you praise the core combat system for. If this is the case, I completely disagree. Support gameplay should also require player skill to execute optimally, rather than "old-school" Healbots from World of Warcraft.

Now I would like to address some specific statements you've made:

@Swagger.1459 wrote:I’ve personally never seen a Ventari Rev in wvw ...

For the brief moment I stepped back into WvW, I was using a front-/mid-line Herald that used Hammer for damage and CC, while also having Ventari tablet to provide burst heals. Just because you personally have never seen or noticed one, doesn't mean anything.

@Swagger.1459 wrote:I’ve rarely seen quality heal spec Druids in open world pve and www

Healing specs of any sort are generally not recommended for open world PVE, be it for solo play or even large meta events. The former drags fights on for ages and makes general gameplay unjoyable, while the effectiveness of healing is largely diminished in the latter scenario due to target limits, the ability to fully disengage, and people generally eating major attacks for whatever reason.

@Swagger.1459 wrote:Heal support is only decent when groups and opponents are more stationary or confined to a small area, like in raids.

And raids and Fractals are generally when heals are mostly needed, which is also why healing support builds are valued more in these scenarios. Your concerns about aiming skills at mobile players isn't derived from "clunky" healing mechanics, but largely of player misconception in regards to movement. In other words, just because you are able to move and attack, doesn't mean you should be moving needlessly. Much like in TERA and Wildstar, the ability of the healer is greatly diminished by team mates that run around like headless chickens.

@Swagger.1459 wrote:We take Druid CA and make it a non gated “stance” maintained until downed or manually exited

This removes a major part of the Druid's mechanics and player skill requirements. In its current state, skilled Druid players are valued because they are able to recharge Celestial Avatar in an efficient manner, and therefore supply more healing and Grace of the Land stacks than less proficient players. By removing this skill element, you are essentially making the profession more boring to play.

If they fixed Regen so it could stack, a banner/shout warrior could be a fantastic support/healer.Sadly, because banner is a unique bonus, it gets kitten poor trait support and the regen muddles or gets muddled by other players' regen effects.

@Swagger.1459 said:

The gated heals and reticle aiming heal design of druid is sincerely not good. The clunky Ventari tablet is not good.

This works just fine in Wildstar, ESO, Neverwinter... and even a FPS like Overwatch.

If I have any complaints with healing, this is NOT one of them. I am seriously glad healing here is NOT 'tab target excel sheet clicking' like it is in WoW and FFXIV...

Healing setups have always been a big pain since first days of gw2 So many people want to do it, but it isn't very effective as most healing play styles want it to be.I'm one of those that wanted to be able to heal and support others, but it is so hard in this game for many reasons. Unlike gw1 where a monk or 2 was always needed. Unfortunately, back in those days i enjoyed being more a tank than a healer, as i got older my play style evolved i got to like playing support classes and healers and buffers in other games.

GW2 is very healer/support roles unfriendly. Sure we can still do them, but in away kinda wasteful and very non-efficient, because every class has a decent heal.Like gw1 for example, only heal most tanks used was mending and maybe depending what they are doing a back up heal. Even with those, a monk or 2 was still needed for almost all contents. Tank relied a great deal on a monk back then, kinda wish that was still the case. Unfortunately, anet went in a different direction, they gave everybody a decent heal made healers not as needed compared to gw1 days.To top it all off, to make healing even less enjoyable, we can't constantly see health bars on other people.

Personally, I think they need to give us an option in our basic game options for health bar show n tell. Like maybe give us PvE specific option for when someones health drops under 75%, 50% or 25% to display the health bar on screen. Once it returns to full health or above the threshold it could disappear from the screen. This idea would help with clutter, wont be so much HP bar spam on screen, when based on threshold and at the same time make healing little bit funner to do.

To make it as useful as gw1 or other games they would have to rework every class, some weapon sigils even some runes in the game and make personal heals incredibly weak and with that it would just raise more complaints and problems from those who like to solo contents. i myself am also a solo player if my current self heal became worthless I would be a bit upset lol. I'm sure alot of others would be aswell.At this point in gw2 life it is to late to make healing efficient again like gw1 days. Just to much already on the table, if the game was designed with healing and support classes in mind from the get go it be all good. They could still yet make it fun, health bar idea would definetly be a good start.

@Swagger.1459 said:

When I look at the combat system as a whole, the only way we can remedy the heal support issues is to make most heal skills pbaoe (point blank area of effect) and have splash heals on enemy targeted attacks for the most part… Long duration large area healing “patches” as well. So for some simplified examples of this… We take Druid CA and make it a non gated “stance” maintained until downed or manually exited (reenter timer starts upon exit). Make CA skill 1 and 2 single target ranged attacks with large area splash heals. CA 3, 4, 5 and seeds become large radius 5 target pbaoe burst heals that deal dot damage, and Glyphs continue to do what they do. Ventari tablet becomes a “backpack” so Revs can run around beating stuff up and doing their heal “things” tied in with energy mechanics.

Unlike the OP, I do see evidence of healing being provided a lot in open world events. I even provide some. However, I also believe that healing in GW2 is handicapped by the way it's designed. Clunky strikes me as a good word to describe it, also. In all of the games I've played, only one healing class (Tabula Rasa Medic) even came close to the awkwardness of trying to play Ventari.

I like these examples. I think the OP's issue is worth looking in to.

Then stop playing support heal lol.

Mesmer can already run a sort of pulsing instant area heal with healing mantras and Mantra of Pain, can even speed it up with altricity and quickness when specced as a Chrono.

I've seen plenty of heal druids in open world ... well either that or just an extremely terrible whatever they think they are playing because why the hell are you camping staff if not for healing? On the other hand out of those probably 99% of them are useless when it comes to actually providing heals regardless of whether it is to me or to NPCs that sometimes needs to be kept alive for some events.

I agree with the original post. While some do not like the dedicated healer, I do not understand why anyone would object to others being able to play such a role in a smooth and efficient way.

This is because the professions were designed to be "support" healers, none were supposed to be "dedicated" healers. Once you learn the difference you'll realise that it takes alot, as was mentioned before in this tread, to be an above decent healspec in this game. Your issue is camping on certain skills to be effective, but this is a game that rewards you for adapting to the situations, most of the time with equal efficiency. It's the same as with power damage - doesn't matter if you do 200% more damage than the enemy, if he knows how to not get hit. Same goes for support, only this time you are 100% responsible for how effective you are.

Imo though, coordinated damage should always outperform coordinated support, as else we will have invincible groups running around - plus it would force meta in group composition. I like it way better as it is now, where you can play however you like. Whether it be healer, dps or mesmer.

Personally, while I understand what the OP is trying to say, I think ArenaNet had the right idea when they tried to move away from the hard trinity. That said, they really didn't go far enough away from it to be successful imho. But what we have is what we have. And in order to fix that, I think Anet should add more support to the game for the support playstyle (or just cut them from the game, like they originally intended).

As a long time MMO player and someone who played GW, I would personally like to see them add/support more playstyles. In total, I'd like to see:

• a damage playstyle with a focus on armor piercing/reduction
• a damage playstyle with a focus on critical strikes
• a damage playstyle with a focus on hard crowd control
• a damage playstyle with a focus on skill shutdown/suppression
• a damage playstyle with a focus on damage over time
• a damage playstyle with a focus on healing/support

For the healing/support playstyle, I'd suggest that they:

• rework some of the skills so they also do damage/have an inverse effect on enemies
• rework some of the skills so that in order to heal, you first need to build up your healing resource by dealing damage